Venus Williams is a gift that keeps on giving

Venus Williams has a disease that causes fatigue and joint pain, but she's still having fun.

Venus Williams has a disease that causes fatigue and joint pain, but she's still having fun.

Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Associated Press

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STANFORD, CA - JULY 29: Venus Williams serves to Paula Kania of Poland during Day 2 of the Bank of the West Classic at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium on July 29, 2014 in Stanford, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) less

STANFORD, CA - JULY 29: Venus Williams serves to Paula Kania of Poland during Day 2 of the Bank of the West Classic at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium on July 29, 2014 in Stanford, California. (Photo by Ezra ... more

Photo: Ezra Shaw, Getty Images

Venus Williams is a gift that keeps on giving

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Twenty years can be an eternity in tennis. It's one of those "play for life" sports among the recreational set, but the pro tours are a merciless grind, dispatching once-promising players as if they never existed.

Venus Williams' professional career wasn't supposed to last a decade, let alone the 20-year mark she celebrates this year. That's what her father told us on Halloween night at the Oakland Coliseum Arena in 1994, when 14-year-old Venus made her professional debut at the Bank of the West Classic. How remarkable that she's still around, about to play a big match at Stanford in the tournament still bearing that name.

It's worth noting, as well, that better times have returned for the family. Concern and speculation surrounded Serena Williams after she fell strangely ill at Wimbledon, but she celebrated her return to good health Wednesday night with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Karolina Pliskova.

There's no point in thinking, "I'd better get one last look at Venus" on Thursday night, when she takes on Victoria Azarenka in the second round, because she isn't going anywhere. She's still chasing major titles and, among other goals, plans to compete in the 2016 Olympics. But this is a very good time to consider what Venus has meant to tennis, both on and off the court.

The prime of Venus' career was one of the most impressive ever witnessed: five Wimbledon titles and two U.S. Open championships between 2000 and '08, twice winning those vastly different tournaments back-to-back. Her epic victory over Lindsay Davenport in 2005 (9-7 in the third) stands as Wimbledon's greatest women's final in at least 20 years. Her vintage matchups against sister Serena, as perplexing as they often seemed, lifted power tennis to new heights.

When historians rank the careers of extreme longevity, they'll rank Venus' below the likes of Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Jimmy Connors and Ken Rosewall. After all, Venus hasn't reached a Grand Slam final except Wimbledon's since 2003. Not that it matters in the slightest. Like all of those players, Venus was an original, bound to be measured against nothing but her own lofty standards.

Almost from the start, she fought hard for women's rights in tennis. When Wimbledon finally saw the light and awarded equal prize money for both sexes, it was largely because of Venus' relentless campaigning. For years, she has traveled the world on soul-uplifting missions to underprivileged regions. She was a key figure in a joint program between the WTA and UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, that promotes gender equality and leadership opportunities for women. And she's done it all with the same classy, unflappable comportment she displays on court.

This is why Venus still matters, at 34, and why parents should give their tennis-playing kids a proper tutorial on what she's meant to the sport. By the way, her game isn't too shabby, either. Petra Kvitova faced only one serious obstacle on her way to this year's Wimbledon title, and it was a titanic third-rounder against Venus (5-7, 7-6, 7-5) described by ESPN's Pam Shriver as "possibly the best tennis we'll see all year."

Kvitova played out of her mind that day - and just barely survived. Those are the good days for Venus, who for several years has dealt with the effects of Sjogren's Syndrome, an autoimmune disease that causes extreme fatigue and joint pain, and for which there is no known cure.

"The fatigue is hard to explain unless you have it," she said. "I always have some level of tiredness. Over time, you do start to wonder what's happening and if you're going crazy. Looking back, it has affected my career in a huge way. I've played a lot of matches with half a deck. A lot of times, I had to pretend I felt good when I felt terrible."

Not once, though, has she ever given the impression of feeling sorry for herself. And she long ago made certain that her father's brazen forecasts were at least partly true. On that Halloween night in 1994, Richard Williams told the world that both of his girls would be ranked No. 1 in the world, that they would also develop wide-ranging outside interests, and that they wouldn't be around the sport for long. Twenty years later, we find both of them as worldly, cosmopolitan types with alternative careers already in progress.

What a night that was. There was a Rolling Stones concert at the Coliseum next door, and Venus' debut match against Shaun Stafford drew only about 900 fans. The national media was there in earnest, however. They'd heard about an African American girl named Venus from the hard streets of Compton, but few of them had any visual evidence.

Because Richard kept the kids away from the punishing grind of junior tennis, "Venus hadn't played a real tournament in 3 1/2 years," recalled her coach at the time, Rick Macci. "She'd been playing against older boys, getting crushed but really building up her game. Nobody had a clue how the Stafford match was going to turn out, but Venus was stoked and dialed in, just ready to go into orbit."

Unaccustomed to tour protocol, Venus didn't even sit down during changeovers. Joyfully uninhibited, she celebrated one winner with a full-on chicken strut. "It was 6-3, 6-4," said Macci. "Everybody was in shock that this girl could basically walk off the street and beat the No. 57 player in the world. Pressure? To her, pressure was Compton. That match was fun!"

It's a feeling that never really vanished. "It's great to still be feeling well enough to play on this tour," Venus said after her victory at Stanford on Tuesday night. "I don't know at that age that I would have envisioned playing this long. But I'm still good, still running pretty fast. I'm not having kids right now, it seems. I don't have any husbands telling me what to do. I don't have to argue every day.